Melania Trump sues Daily Mail, blogger over 'defamatory' stories

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Melania Trump, the wife of U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, sued the Maryland-based publisher of the Daily Mail Online and a blogger on Thursday over stories about her past she believes were "tremendously damaging," her attorney said in a statement.

A Daily Mail story last month cited a Slovenian magazine's report that a modeling agency that Trump worked with in New York in the 1990s also served as an escort business, linking wealthy clients with women for sexual services.

Trump notified the British newspaper and other news organizations on Aug. 22 that she would take legal action in response, Trump's attorney, Charles Harder, said in an email at the time, calling the reports "outright lying."

"These defendants made several statements about Mrs. Trump that are 100% false and tremendously damaging to her personal and professional reputation," he said in a statement on Thursday. The suit was filed in state circuit court in Montgomery County, Maryland.

The Daily Mail did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The suit alleges that the Maryland blogger, Webster Griffin Tarpley, published "false and defamatory statements" about Trump, including that the former model had suffered from "a full-blown nervous breakdown."

Tarpley could not immediately be reached for comment.

"Defendants’ actions are so egregious, malicious and harmful to Mrs. Trump that her damages are estimated at $150 million dollars," her lawyer's statement said.

Trump, who now has her own jewelry line, was born in Slovenia and moved to the United States in the 1990s. She married Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 election, in 2005.